The Lawyer Who Never Let a Phone Call Go Unanswered

For over a decade, Mohammad Hajilou's phone rarely stopped ringing. A housing dispute here, a labour complaint there, a family in the middle of a documentation nightmare – the calls came whether he was in his office, on the road, or long past the end of his working day. Some days Mr. Hajilou would answer more than 150 calls.

"As a lawyer, but above all as a human, I felt it was my duty to go beyond my working hours and what was initially asked of me," he says.

Mr. Hajilou retired in December 2025, after more than a decade as a lawyer hired by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in Iran’s Qom province, leaving a legacy of legal support that helped thousands of refugees navigate complex challenges and access their rights.

As a lawyer supporting people forced to flee conflict, violence and persecution, his role often extended beyond simply providing legal advice. He worked closely with the judiciary, the provincial Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants’ Affairs (BAFIA) and local authorities, facilitating negotiations and mediating disputes that might otherwise have dragged refugee families through months of costly court proceedings. More often than not, he found a way to resolve things before they got that far.

But ask Mr. Hajilou what he's most proud of, and he doesn't talk about case numbers.

"This work has given me a sense of community, a sense of togetherness," he says. "Every time I helped one refugee, it made me feel extremely rewarded."

One memory in particular stands out for Mr. Hajilou. In 2025, as large numbers of Afghans began returning from Iran, families faced a quiet financial crisis: rental deposits – often a household's entire savings – caught in disputes with landlords. For many families returning to Afghanistan, that deposit was the difference between starting over with something or with nothing.

Through patient mediation, legal expertise and persistent follow-up, Mr Hajilou helped nearly 1,000 families recover deposits they might otherwise have lost for good.

Such legal aid plays a vital role in helping refugees resolve disputes, access their rights and maintain stability in their daily lives. With the support of the European Union, UNHCR has been providing legal support to refugees in Iran since 2019, including enabling access to information, counselling and legal remedies. These services promote refugee protection by helping displaced people to understand and exercise their rights, while preventing disputes from escalating.

In 2025 alone, UNHCR-hired lawyers provided legal services to 10,525 individuals across the country, helping refugees recover entitlements, resolve disputes and navigate administrative procedures in an increasingly challenging environment. Between January and July 2026, despite significant operational constraints faced by UNHCR in Iran, UNHCR-hired lawyers held 3,244 counselling sessions with 2,762 Afghan individuals. Across 19 provinces, lawyers supported refugees with matters ranging from documentation and legal stay to labour and family disputes, financial concerns and administrative procedures.

For Mr. Hajilou though, the numbers were never really the point. Most of the people who called him had never dealt with a lawyer before. Many didn't know what rights they had, or whether they had any at all. What he offered, session after session, call after call, wasn't just legal expertise – it was the sense that someone was actually listening.

"I felt it was my duty to go beyond"

"I felt it was my duty to go beyond," he says again, as if the sentence bears repeating.

He's retired now, officially. But in the thousands of families whose deposits were returned, whose disputes were settled, whose confidence in a fair outcome was restored one phone call at a time, his work is still very much in motion.